They're no 192-foot Goodyear BlimpTM, but at 72-feet long, and 40-feet tall the hulking white addition to the Texas skyline strikes an intimidating presence. That is, it would if you could see it -- the special helium blimp floats at between 2,000-3,000 feet in the air, capable of staying aloft for up to two weeks at a time.

2011 marked a landmark year for Raven Industries with over 15 of the South Dakota-based company's floaters deployed to battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq, including the contested city of Kabul, a key base for America's occupying force in Afghanistan. Sales of the blimps helped Raven Industries pull in $381M+ USD in revenue in 2011 [source].

Equipped with sophisticated video and infrared sensors, the blimps cost the DOD between $1M USD and $5M USD, according toThe Wall Street Journal (officially the cost and configurations are classified). But if the CBP and DHS enjoy their free trial, they can pick up virtually the whole fleet for $27M USD.

But the CBP says it is wary of jumping in too fast. It's still reeling from the DHS's decision to pull the controversial billion dollar "electric fence" initiative, which would have used cameras, radar, and other devices to create a wireless sensor network spanning the entire border.

The Aerostar in flight over Afghanistan in Sept. 2011. [Image Source: Reuters]

The Raven Industries Aerostar would be a deal in a way, but they would also drain between a third and fourth of the yearly equipment budget. Thus the CBP is also considering alternatives.

It's already field testing modified Predator drones, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) used extensively by the DOD. Also on its radar is a rival blimp from TCOM LP of Columbia, Maryland. The TCOM design is less expensive, but also less subtle -- it's tethered to the ground by a long communications cable.

But tests of both the TCOM blimp and the Raven Industries design are still in progress in east Texas, with the CBP uncertain whether they will be a good fit. After all, illegal entrants into the country operate in a rather different fashion than Afghani insurgents, and there's substantial differences in the desert landscape as well.

As the DHS steps up its surveillance efforts, there are also tough questions regarding this form of ubiquitous government surveillance. Some fear the U.S. descending further into a "police state" in which armed flyers and floaters are used to spy on and assault people in urban and suburban America.

And then there's the issue of the enforcement itself. At 1,969 miles [source] the U.S.-Mexican border is an enforcer's nightmare.

The issue of illegal immigration has historically been, and is today a hyper-politicized issue, and in an election year tensions are running high. The only alleviating factor is a surprising reverse migration of immigrants (legal and illegal) returning back to Mexico due to the lack of jobs in America, according to the Pew Hispanic Center [source].

Even with the ebb of net immigration, the flow of unauthorized Mexican nationals adds yet another persistent wrinkle -- the "War on Drugs", first declared by President Richard Nixon in 1971.

In many ways the War on Drugs has earned a place among America's numerous historic overseas conflicts in terms of cost and destruction. To date it has drained over $1T USD [source].

Mexico provides the majority of U.S. marijuana. [Image Source: AFP]

The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that many tons of marijuana are smuggled across the Mexican border per year. It labels Mexico as the biggest source of marijuana in the U.S., where cultivation is illegal despite being agriculturally viable.

In 2011 the nation budgeted an estimated $15.5B USD [source] to the U.S. Drug Czar to perpetuate this domestic "War" -- 31 times the inflation-adjusted budget Nixon devoted. Much of the war involved banning the most used illegal drug -- marijuana, a drug top physicians say is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. Approximately half of U.S. drug arrests are attributable to marijuana possession.

Experts estimate that the U.S. loses almost $50B USD [source] in potential tax revenue by outlawing marijuana -- roughly $2T USD over the forty years of the war on drugs. Combined with the net cost, that works out to roughly $3T USD -- enough to pay off a third of the U.S. national debt [source].

IV. Members of Congress Critical of DHS Spending

Some like Texas Rep. Ron Paul (R), who have a front row view of the immigration debate and "War on Drugs" have advocated decriminalizing marijuana. Rep. Paul is quoted as saying, "And marijuana - I think it's tragic what's happening today in the drug war. Since the early '70s we've spent maybe $200 to $300 billion on the drug war. That's not been any good. This whole effort on the drug war doesn't make any sense at all to me."

Rep. Paul also supports disbanding the DHS, which at $53B USD constituted approximately 1.4 percent of the $3.83T USD spent by the Obama administration in 2011.

Amid all the controversy -- the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, domestic surveillance and the police state -- one perpetual criticism of the blimp --er-- aerostat is easy to lay to rest: "But what if they're shot."

Raven Industries CEO Dan Rykhus comments, "We actually like when they [insurgents] try to shoot at them as there's technology on the blimp that allows us to train the camera on the source of that gunfire."

The aerostats are at near equal-pressure, which means the pressure on the inside of the blimp is almost the same as on the outside. What that means is that if they are hit, the helium inside won't rush out.

In other words, while buying the blimps may draw the ire of some fiscal conservatives, don't accuse the floaters of being gun fodder for drug traffickers.

This. And once pot is legal and the benefits to it being legal are understood, the push to make all narcotics legal will soon follow. Drugs will become simply another taxed vice. Prison populations will decrease by 25-50%. The DEA can be eliminated, and the FDA can turn a healthy profit from regulation. The USDA can stop subsidizing farmers to not grow crops. Gang violence will plummet, since the key racket gangs profit from will be defunct. Black markets will shrink substantially, since fencing stolen products directly for drugs will be impossible.

But perhaps the best benefit of all is that all the idiots who lack self-control will OD within the first 6 months, and the gene-pool will naturally chlorinate itself.

quote: And once pot is legal and the benefits to it being legal are understood, the push to make all narcotics legal will soon follow

I've got a feeling America isn't quite that libertarian, though it wouldn't be a bad thing, because...

quote: all the idiots who lack self-control will OD within the first 6 months, and the gene-pool will naturally chlorinate itself.

If people wanted it, they could load up at WalMart and have at it, after duly paying the appropriate local sales tax and embedded corporate taxes on their narcotic of choice. Most of the price of street drugs is dealer mark-up and inefficiency involved in illegal distribution, so we could tax the bejesus out of it and WalMart could still sell it for a little less, and everybody makes a buck.

Only downside? We're too much a bleeding-heart society.. If those idiots OD but screw up, then we just end up paying for expensive care for the rest of their miserable brain-damaged lives. Same thing if they just abuse the wrong things for too long; I can see Nancy Pelosi wanting to usher them on to SSI disability.

This is the problem with having government funded medical. Having government funded medical means the government has an interest in controlling what people do in their own homes: smoking, alcohol, drugs etc. because they need to control costs.

People need to be allowed to be stupid and make their own mistakes. If, in the process of being stupid, people break the law then they will pay the price for breaking the law. If people do it in the privacy of their home then they're on their own.

quote: But perhaps the best benefit of all is that all the idiots who lack self-control will OD within the first 6 months, and the gene-pool will naturally chlorinate itself.

Idiots like kids in their late teens early 20ies? Who might be very intelligent but lack basic common sense. These substances being illegal keep many away from their abuse; Take that deterrent away and it’s your child making a bad choice one night being culled…

Entirely disagree. Making something illegal has always increased the allure of it. We did much better on making cigarettes a social-taboo via marketing and ads than we did with making alcohol illegal by legislating it.